Final Days for Virgin Express

The In-Flight Magazine of SimAirline.net
March 2007
Final Days for
Virgin Express
ALSO INSIDE:
Interchange Flights Debut
Franchise Changes at British Airways
Blended Winglets
CONTENTS
LATITUDE
MARCH 2007
6 COVER STORY
The Virgin Express name
disappears from the skies this
month after the airline’s merger to
form Brussels Airlines.
Cover Photo: Chris Sheldon
A Virgin Express 737737-300 in Shannon
wearing the airline’
airline’s original livery
5 PAN AMERICAN INTERCHANGES
What is an interchange and what value does it add to Pan
American Virtual?
9 FRANCHISE LOSSES
More franchise changes are underway at British Airways. Will
the trend continue? How does it affect Virtual British Airways?
11 BLENDED WINGLETS
Aviation Partners Boeing’
Boeing’ development of blended winglets for
the 737 and 757 have proven to be an enormous success.
3
4
8
10
12
Viewpoint
News Briefs
VA Spotlight
Hub Focus
The Tail Section
2
VIEWPOINT
I would like to apologize for the SimAirline.net website being unavailable at the end of the
last month. The website was unavailable for approximately 80 hours. The problem was related to
our inability to renew our domain name (i.e., simairline.net) because our website and domain
name hosting provider had not properly transferred our domain name when we switched fifteen
months ago. As a result, we had no information regarding when our domain name was due to
expire until after the fact. I am truly sorry for the downtime, and I do not expect this to be a
problem in the future.
Every year, March marks the beginning of the summer timetable for most of our airlines, and
is a time of major expansion. This March however, we will be experiencing a loss: Virgin
Express will no longer exist in the real world once it completes its merger to form Brussels
Airlines on 25 March. Our feature article in this month’s Latitude looks back at the airline’s
eleven-year history and outlines the changes that will be made to our Virgin Express operations
at Virgin International Airways as a result.
SimAirline.net will be losing another part of our operations next month as well: the
operations of Big Sky Airlines within Montana will no longer be offered. These routes were
originally offered as part of Northwest Virtual because Big Sky was partially owned by
Northwest. As part of Northwest’s bankruptcy restructuring, this ownership structure will no
longer exist as of 15 April. For simplicity, Big Sky will remain a part of Northwest’s operations
through the end of that month. However, part of Big Sky will still be at SimAirline.net: next
month the airline will begin flying under the Delta Connection banner from Boston.
As a reminder, daylight saving time
Luis Rosa
changes begin in the next few weeks for
many countries around the world, so please
be aware of these changes and file your
PIREPs as soon as possible after flying the
route. Time zone transitions are listed in
this issue’s “Tail Section.” As always, we
encourage pilots to check The World Time
Server for the latest and most accurate
information.
Konstantin von Wedelstaedt
Virgin Express will remain a part of
SimAirline.net’s operations, but in
reduced form.
Happy Flying!
Aaron Robinson
[email protected]
AOL Instant Messenger: SimAirlineNet
3
NEWS BRIEFS
Virgin Blue Formalizes Longhaul Plans
After five years of talking about longhaul routes, Virgin Blue is
is finally moving forward, with the
announcement that the airline is in negotiations with Boeing for between seven and thirteen 777777300ERs for longhaul service, initially to the U.S.
Alitalia Bid Update, Leadership Changes Made
The Italian government reduced the number of possible bidders for
for Alitalia to five: AP Holding (led by
rival airline Air One’
One’s Carlo Toto), Management & Capitali,
Capitali, MatlinPatterson Global Advisers, Texas
Pacific Group (part of recent consortia to buy both Qantas and Sabre),
Sabre), and UniCredit.
UniCredit. All five must
submit nonbinding offers, including a turnaround plan, by April. The Alitalia board of directors was
replaced by a new fivefive-person board, removing CEO Giancarlo Cimoli from the chairman position and
replacing him with Banca di Roma Chairman Berardino Libonati.
Libonati.
Bangkok’
Bangkok’s Don Muang Airport to Reopen
Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulamont ordered the reopening of Bangkok’
Bangkok’s old airport, Don Muang,
Muang,
to prevent overcrowding at the new Suvarnabhumi airport, which opened on 15 September. Don
Muang should be ready for reopening by 1 April. Thai will be moving some
some domestic operations back
to the old facility.
Continental, Northwest Share Profits with Employees
Following successful years, Continental Airlines and Northwest Airlines
Airlines distributed profitprofit-sharing
checks to their employees. Continental shared $111 million of the
the $343 million earned in 2006, while
Northwest doled out $44 million after reporting an annual operating
operating profit of $301 million. Both
reported their first annual operating profit since 2000.
Power8 Restructuring at Airbus Approved
Airbus parent EADS approved Airbus’
Airbus’ proposed Power8 restructuring, which includes 10,000 job cuts,
closing or selling three plants, spinning off three plants, and outsourcing half of all A350 production.
The cuts are intended to increase productivity by 16% and eventually
eventually cut annual costs by €2.1 billion,
with €5 billion in cumulative savings by 2010. Airbus CEO Louis Gallois also pointed out that part of
Airbus’
Airbus’ declining performance has been the falling value of the U.S. dollar,
dollar, which has “led to a 20% of
loss of competitiveness in only six years.”
years.”
CRJ Stretched Again, to -1000
Canadair announced that it will develop a 100100-seat version of its CRJ product line by stretching the
CRJCRJ-900 (90 seats) an additional 9.8 ft. ThirtyThirty-eight orders have been placed for the new version, with
entry into service due in late 2009. The company expects the CRJCRJ-1000 not to compete with the
proposed CC-Series because the two are designed for different operators—
operators—regional vs. mainline.
4
Interchanges Come
to Pan American
Ted Miley
This month, Pan American will expand its reach
domestically rather than abroad with the addition of four
interchanges, an early form of codesharing between
airlines. Prior to U.S. airline deregulation, the Civil
Aeronautics Board was faced with a dilemma: passengers
needed to be provided with direct, samesame-plane service
between distant cities, but airlines needed to be protected
from destructive competition to build up the usefulness
of the domestic system.
Thus interchanges were born, under which an airline
could offer service to destinations outside of its network
by swapping personnel and equipment between the two
networks. For instance, because in its early history, Delta
Air Lines did not have rights west of Texas, it entered an
interchange agreement with American Airlines to
combine certain parts of their networks.
A Delta passenger (and crew) in Miami could
therefore fly on a Delta DCDC-6, MiamiMiami-AtlantaAtlanta-DallasDallas-Los
Angeles, even though Delta could not technically serve
Los Angeles. Likewise, an American passenger (and
crew) could fly the same route on an American
Constellation, even though American was likewise
excluded from Atlanta and Miami.
While interchanges occurred mostly on domestic
routes, Pan American began offering interchanges in the
1960s to garner more passengers for its overseas flights.
Their domestic partners benefited by being able to offer
additional service to their limited overseas networks. It
eventually reached interchange agreements with four
different airlines, Braniff, Delta, National, and
Northwest Orient, all four of which will be recreated at
Pan American Virtual. For ease of use, interchange
aircraft will only be allowed on domestic segments.
Braniff interchanged with Pan American on its
ChicagoChicago-DallasDallas-Houston route with the 707. Braniff
passengers were able to fly via the interchange onwards
to either Europe or Latin America, and Pan American
customers were able to fly the growing metropolis in
north Texas. Braniff would later go on to purchase Pan
American’
American’s subsidiary Panagra.
Panagra.
Delta’
Delta’s interchange with Pan American was on a New
OrleansOrleans-AtlantaAtlanta-Washington route with former Pan
American DCDC-8s, and provided Pan American with
access to Atlanta, as well as a transatlantic route for New
Orleans.
National DCDC-8s will be offered to connect Pan
American’
American’s two primary gateways, Miami and New York
Kennedy. Service continues onwards to Panama City and
to Panagra’
Panagra’s routes down to South America.
Finally, Northwest Orient 707s will extend Pan
American’
American’s London HeathrowHeathrow-Detroit route onward to
Minneapolis/St. Paul.
Bob Garrard
5
Adieu, vaarwel, goodbye…
Omar Saffee
The Virgin Express callsign and name will no longer
grace Europe’
Europe’s skies after 25 March, when the airline’
airline’s
merger with SN Brussels Airlines, the successor to
Sabena, finally takes place. The airline’
airline’s bright red
aircraft have already been repainted into the white, blue,
and gray of the new Brussels Airlines.
While Virgin Express will be departing in the real
world, its virtual counterpart at SimAirline.net, active
since the organization opened in 2000, will remain open,
but in reduced form. Both airlines centered their
operations in Brussels, and Sabena outsourced its flights
to Barcelona, London, and Rome to Virgin Express,
dropping its own service to those cities (except for
London City Airport) altogether.
The reduced Virgin Express operations will focus
solely on those routes, effective 25 March. From
Brussels, Sabena also flew to sixteen of Virgin Express’
Express’
other twentytwenty-one cities from Brussels, and offered higher
frequencies on all of those routes.
“Virgin Express’
Express’ operations are largely duplicative of
our network at Sabena Virtual,”
Virtual,” points out Managing
Director Aaron Robinson. “We felt it was in the best
interests of the organization to restructure our Virgin
Express network in favor of Sabena Virtual’
Virtual’s greater
options.”
”
options.
Revenue
Passengers Passenger
Miles (millions) (millions)
Profit
(millions)
1996 1,811,003
1,753,529
€160.6
€0.1
1997 2,922,348
2,182,560
€227.6
€6.9
1998 3,554,825
2,286,768
€259.5
€0.6
1999 4,053,842
2,651,410
€290.5
(€5.7)
2000 3,814,689
2,495,154
€289.9
(€65.2)
2001 2,505,935
1,368,412
€212.1
€0.1
2002 2,472,284
1,763,578
€227.3
€0.4
2003 2,532,931
2,052,060
€207.1
(€19.1)
2004 2,051,059
1,700,569
€179.8
(€7.3)
2005 1,830,000
unavailable
€234.7
€3.0
2006 1,985,000
unavailable
unavailable
unavailable
Virgin Express reached its peak in 1999, but was
soon forced to begin downsizing.
-continued on page 77-
6
-continued from page 66Virgin Express began operations on 23 April 1996
after Sir Richard Branson bought EuroBelgian Airlines, a
leisure operator, and rebranded the company. The airline
originally focused on charter operations but later
transitioned to focus almost exclusively on scheduled
services by 2001.
Branson’
Branson’s original vision was to create a lowlow-fare
airline for Europe that would challenge and redefine
what an airline could be, much like Virgin Atlantic had
done successfully the decade before. Unfortunately, the
airline did not see the same kind of success as its U.K.
counterpart or Australia’
Australia’s Virgin Blue. Virgin Express
flew almost exclusively 737737-300s and -400s, and at its
height, operated twentytwenty-two of the type. It operates just
ten today.
Why was Virgin Express unable to succeed, whereas
other lowlow-fare airlines in Europe could and did? Virgin
Edwin Vanoverschelde
After several tries, Virgin Express and SN
Brussels finally agreed to merge…
merge…
Express’
Express’ brand was not the problem, but its decisions
were.
Virgin Express was originally the only lowlow-fare airline
in continental Europe, but never expanded its position
and eventually lost out to the likes of Air Berlin, easyJet,
and Ryanair.
Ryanair. Virgin Express initially took advantage of
the open skies of Europe by offering service not
involving Brussels, but eventually retreated to Brussels.
Plans for a hub at Cologne/Bonn were made in 2002
but later cancelled after Lufthansa and TUI announced
plans to match Virgin Express’
Express’ routes. A second
possibility, domestic operations from Paris Orly, were
scrapped the following year after insufficient slots were
allocated to compete with Air France.
While Virgin Express originally operated to cities with
a desirable mix of passengers, both business and leisure,
it never took advantage of Sabena’
Sabena’s collapse, and
Virgin Express logos through the years
eventually found itself crowded on both ends out by a
rebounding SN Brussels Airlines and a growing Ryanair
at Brussels Charleroi Airport. Virgin Express was
eventually forced to focus almost solely on lowlow-yielding
Mediterranean routes.
While unsuccessful in most areas, Virgin Express was
particularly outstanding in one: onon-time performance.
The airline was regularly one of the leaders in this
category in Europe, and often had months with better
than 90% onon-time arrivals.
Virgin Express held merger talks with both Sabena
and SN Brussels, but was never able to reach a deal until
April 2005. Plans to merge were announced the
following April, and the airline’
airline’s new brand, Brussels
Airlines, not reviving Sabena as widely speculated, was
unveiled last November.
Alejandro Pérez
…and form Brussels Airlines.
7
VA SPOTLIGHT
operating costs in the world. Additional gateways have
been added (Anchorage and Portland), as well as new
destinations in Hawaii (Kahului and Kona).
Northwest’
Northwest’s regional partners are Mesaba Airlines and
Pinnacle Airlines, both of which operate under the
Northwest Airlink banner. A third Airlink carrier, whollywhollyowned Compass Airlines, will begin operations later this
year.
While still in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Northwest is
currently expecting to emerge from bankruptcy in the
second quarter of this year. A fleet renewal is ongoing but
incomplete; A330s have replaced all DCDC-10s, the 787 will
enter service in 2008, and the CRJCRJ-900 and EE-175 will
begin flying for Compass and Mesaba, respectively, in the
coming months. The airline has not yet made firm plans to
replace its 747747-200s or DCDC-9s, but will be in the coming
years.
An A330-300 over Michigan
Northwest Airlines is the world’
world’s fifth largest airline
and has been part of the world’
world’s most integrated airline
alliance with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines since 1991. The
airline also maintains an extensive Pacific network and
offers the most international gateways and Asian
destinations of any U.S. airline.
Northwest and KLM operate the only airline alliance
with full antitrust immunity, allowing them to integrate
their product and supply networks. Areas of integration
include marketing, reservations, purchasing, ground
handling, route networks, schedules, pricing, revenue
sharing, frequentfrequent-flier programs, and an identical business
class product.
All of Northwest’
Northwest’s transpacific flights operate via
Japan, either through Nagoya, Osaka Kansai, or, like most,
via Tokyo Narita. Northwest has kept this Pacific strategy
since it first began flights to Asia in 1947 because of its
fifthfifth-freedom rights, the ability to offer intraintra-Asia service,
to Japanese passengers.
Domestically, Northwest’
Northwest’s network is focused on the
Midwest, where the airline maintains the largest market
share of any airline. The airline is also strong on
secondary transcontinental citycity-pairs, often offering the
best connections thanks to its northern hubs in Detroit
and Minneapolis/St, Paul.
Northwest has also expanded service to Hawaii
dramatically in recent years, thanks to the introduction of
the 757757-300, which features the lowest per passenger
Interesting Facts:
-Northwest is the only U.S. airline to maintain hubs abroad
in both Asia and Europe.
-Northwest will be the first airline in North America to
operate the 787.
-Despite having never ordered a single DCDC-9, Northwest
operates over a third of all active DCDC-9s.
-Within the next year, Northwest will operate the largest
A330 fleet in the world.
A DC-9-30 departing Atlanta
8
Switching Sides
Russell Collins
British Airways is now facing the imminent loss of
two of its six remaining franchise partners, after rival
BMI announced its purchase of British Mediterranean
Airways (BMED) on 5 February for a mere £30 million.
In November, British Airways also announced the sale
of troubled regional subsidiary BA Connect to FlyBe.
FlyBe.
BMED will continue its franchise agreement with
British Airways until the end of the summer timetable in
2007, at which point it will transition to join the BMI
network. BMED currently flies three A320s and five
A321s from London Heathrow to eighteen mediummedium-haul
destinations, most in the Middle East and Central Asia.
British Airways has not yet indicated if it will offer
continue to offer service to any of these destinations
after the franchise agreement ends, but with important
destinations like Beirut and Tehran that feed to the
airline’
airline’s longhaul network, service will likely continue.
Indeed, the 21 February purchases of four A320s and
four 777777-200ERs suggest that at least part of the
network would be retained. While the 777s would be
unlikely candidates to replace BMED A321s, the routes
could be upped to 757s or 767s, with the extra 777s
replacing the smaller aircraft’
aircraft’s capacity.
Even before BMED departs from British Airways,
the majority of BA Connect’
Connect’s regional network will be
transferred to FlyBe,
FlyBe, a successful regional carrier. While
British Airways will retain a 15% ownership stake in the
company, it will remain entirely outside of the British
Airways network. Only a small fleet of Avro RJ100s to
serve highhigh-yielding routes from London City Airport will
remain.
Under the leadership of Rod Eddington and now
Willie Walsh, British Airways has been steadily
refocusing its operations around its global network
rather than its shorthaul and regional networks, which
have suffered in profitability over the last decade.
Since the departure of CEO Robert Ayling,
Ayling, British
Airways has ended its franchise agreements with no
fewer than six other partners: Air Liberte,
Liberte, BASE
Airlines, British World Airlines, Deutsche BA, Maersk
Air, and Regional Air.
While only three of these partners actually operated
within the U.K., the British Airways network at home
has steadily declined and the airline has become criticized
as “London Airways,”
Airways,” refusing to look beyond southeast
England. Ironically, one of Ayling’
Ayling’s goals was to
transform the airline into more of a world airline and less
of a British one, although his strategy was through the
muchmuch-derided ‘World Tails’
Tails’ rebranding.
rebranding.
Virtual British Airways will be largely unaffected by
the realreal-life losses of BA Connect and BMED. “We plan
to continue offering all routes of these two partners,
regardless of if they continue to be offered in real life or
not,”
not,” says Managing Director Aaron Robinson.
“SimAirline.net is committed to offering as many
domestic and international routes to its British pilots as
possible.”
possible.”
Over the coming months, Virtual British Airways will
be reviewing and expanding its regional operations.
Additional routes and destinations will be opened up as a
result of the addition of smaller aircraft from airlines that
were formerly British Airways franchise partners.
9
HUB FOCUS
Tokyo International Airport (HND/RJTT)
Tokyo International Airport, better known as
Haneda, handled 64.4 million passengers in
2006, the fourth most passengers in the world
in 2006. It is also the largest hub for All Nippon
Airways.
The primary airport for Tokyo prior to the
opening of Narita in 1978, the airport serves
almost exclusively domestic flights. An
agreement between the Japanese and South
Korean governments though, allowed citycity-toto-city
service between Haneda and Seoul Gimpo
Airport, which had a similar background. One
daily flight was allotted each to ANA, Asiana,
Asiana, JAL,
and Korean Air. A second daily flight was granted
to all four in 2005.
At Haneda, ANA flies primarily from the
recently opened Terminal 2, although the flights
to Seoul depart from the smaller International
Terminal. ANA Virtual offers service to 34
domestic destinations from Haneda, including
seventeen daily flights to Fukuoka, fifteen daily
flights to Sapporo Chitose,
Chitose, and fourteen daily
flights to Osaka Itami. Of those flights, only four
Joe Jones
The control tower at HND
are not operated by a 747 or 777.
In addition to Korean Air’
Air’s service to Seoul
Gimpo, Pan American flies to Tokyo Haneda as
part of its daily roundround-thethe-world flight, and on
sixteen weekly flights to several other
destinations: Fairbanks, Guam, Hong Kong Kai
Tak,
Tak, Honolulu, Los Angeles, New York Kennedy,
Osaka Itami, and San Francisco.
Interesting Facts:
-A fourth runway for Haneda is under
construction and will allow even more capacity in
2009.
-Japan and China have agreed in principle to
allow ANA and other airlines to operate city
shuttle service from Haneda to Shanghai
Hongqiao Airport.
-Haneda was the busiest airport in Asia in terms
of aircraft movements until being passed by
Beijing in 2004.
-Haneda flights on average carry over 200
passengers, while most airports can’
can’t reach 100
passengers per movement.
Takashi Takahashi
ANA flies over 200 flights a day from
Terminal 2, most on widebodies.
10
Wings of the Future
Alexander Schindler
Blended winglets have grown enormously in
popularity since their introduction in 1999 on the 737737800. While winglets have been around for decades, their
attractiveness has increased dramatically in recent years
due to the rising cost of fuel.
Blended winglets are now available direct from the
factory on the 737737-700/800/900, or for aircraft already
in service, on the same models plus the 737737300/400/500 and 757200.
Retrofitting
is done by
757
Aviation Partners Boeing (APB), a joint venture between
Aviation Partners, Inc. and Boeing Commercial
Airplanes.
The principle behind winglets is that they reduce wing
vortex concentration, and therefore the drag on the
aircraft. Blended winglets differ from traditional winglets
in that the angle change from wing to winglet is curved
rather than angled, making them more effective.
The increased performance available from blended
winglets provides the following benefits:
-improved climbs, especially useful for hot or high
airports
-reduced fuel consumption and noise pollution
-reduced climb and cruise thrust
-improved cruise performance and range
Today over half of all 737NGs have blended winglets,
including about 85% of new builds. APB has also begun
winglet conversion for the 757, and is exploring options
for the 767 and 777.
Blended winglets are not right for all airlines though,
since aircraft need to be taken out of service, and the
benefits are greatest for aircraft flying long sectors.
Many of SimAirline.net’
SimAirline.net’s airlines have opted to install
blended winglets on their aircraft. Below is a look at
which of our airlines operate aircraft with blended, or, in
parentheses, which will in the near future.
737737-300
(Continental,) Virgin Express
737737-500
(Continental)
737737-700
Alaska, ANA, Continental, Copa, (Delta,) Virgin Blue
737737-700ER
(ANA)
737737-800
Alaska, Continental, Copa, (KLM,) South African,
Virgin Blue
737737-900
(Alaska, Continental, KLM)
737737-900ER
(Continental)
757757-200
Continental, (Delta), Icelandair, Northwest
11
THE TAIL SECTION
Alaska Airlines
Alaska Airlines recently unveiled its latest special livery. Called
Called “Starliner 75,”
75,” the
th anniversary that will be celebrated later this
livery commemorates the airline’
’
s
75
airline
year. The livery was originally worn on the DCDC-3, which were branded as Starliners.
Starliners.
The 737737-800 that will wear the livery will enter service with the airline
airline this month.
The livery was chosen through companycompany-wide voting.
Chris Coduto
New Retired Aircraft Available
Four additional retired aircraft became
available at this month, all McDonnell
Douglas models. The MDMD-11 is now available
at both Alitalia Virtual and Delta Virtual, the
DCDC-1010-30 is now offered at Virtual British
Airways, and the DCDC-8-62 can now be flown
at Hawaiian Virtual.
Recent/Upcoming Daylight Saving Time Changes
25 February – Brazil
11 March – Bahamas, Bermuda, Canada, Chile,
Cuba, Paraguay, U.S., Uruguay
17 March – New Zealand
25 March – Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus,
Europe, Georgia, Lebanon, Tunisia, Turkey
29 March – Jordan
30 March – Israel
31 March – Mongolia
1 April – Haiti, Iraq, Mexico, Namibia, Syria, Turks
and Caicos
27 April – Egypt
6 May – Honduras
Please note that unlike recent years, the U.S. and
Canada are observing daylight saving time before
Europe and Mexico.
Content submissions for The Tail Section are encouraged and should be directed to [email protected].
[email protected].
12